Some state agencies in the dark over budget

It’s less than a week until Gov. Andrew Cuomo releases his 2011-12 budget and, as has been expected, leaks from the Second Floor have been minimal. What’s unusual though, is the lack of information that some state agencies are getting as well.

Traditionally, agency heads and their budget people would have gotten briefings from the governors office and the Division of Budget would be running spread-sheet type scenarios of what certain cuts would mean in the various programs.

But that’s not happened yet this year, at least according to one official I just spoke with in one of the mid-sized agencies.

There’s been no heads-up on the budget nor has there been much gathering of input.

“We haven’t gotten anything,” the individual said of information on what the budget might contain for the agency in question.

This appears to be part of a larger shift in how the state budget is being developed, with much of the decision making moving from the Division of Budget to the governor’s office. There’s been some note of this, especially regarding the status of Bob Megna, the DOB’s well respected director.

While team Cuomo has simply said that Megna is staying on at Budget, there’s been no formal announcement and Megna has made none of the occassional briefing visits to the press corps that for a while were a staple of news coverage during the Paterson Administration. Many of the brass tacks budget decisions are said to coming from Cuomo aides Larry Schwartz and Paul Francis.

This isn’t to say all of the agencies have been frozen out, representatives from various constituencies and some of the major state agencies have been to the governor’s office, although that’s different from a formal briefing.